The Creutz-Taube complex revisited: DFT study of the infrared frequencies

The structural parameters, electronic properties, and infrared frequencies of three binuclear ruthenium complexes, [(NH(3))(5)Ru(pyrazine)Ru(NH(3))(5)](n+), n = 4-6, have been investigated with density functional theory. Structural analysis demonstrates that the structure of the mixed-valence 5+, or [II,III], is not an intermediate of the reduced 4+, or [II,II], and the oxidized 6+, or [III,III], compounds. Electronic structure comparison shows that the Ru d(yz) antibonding orbital is empty when n = 5 and 6 and occupied, when n = 4. The infrared frequencies have been calculated for a sequence of models with increasingly detailed accounts of counterions, ranging from the free Creutz-Taube 5+ ion, over jellium embedded, COnductor-like Screening MOdel (COSMO), to the experimental structure of the triclinic [II,III](tos)(5).4H(2)O (tos = p-toluenesulfonate) crystal. Analysis of the Ru vibrations shows that the spectra for the two symmetry-inequivalent Ru atoms are essentially the same. We find that Ru-Ru modes exist near three well-defined frequencies in the solid: at 145, 285, and 345 cm(-1). Similar results are also obtained for the simplified jellium and COSMO models. The spectral properties of these vibrational correlations testify to the existence of two coupled Ru atoms in the same charge state.